Club Inégales 23 July : Maya Youssef, Cheng Yu & Hyelim Kim

For the final concert of this season and in true inégales spirit we bring together three outstanding musicians who have delighted our audiences over the past year.

Maya Youssef is a Syrian kanun player based in London. After winning the Best Musician Award in Syria’s national youth music competition in 1996 her musical career developed with in-depth studies of the kanun in Damascus, many international performances as well as residencies in Dubai and London. She has appeared at the Royal Albert Hall and frequently collaborates with cross-genre artists such as the Elysian Quartet or the Syrian Female Orientale Group which she founded in 2003 along five of her colleagues. Maya performs her own compositions with influences of Syrian folk, Turkish and Arabic classical traditions.

Cheng Yu is an internationally renowned pipa and guqin virtuoso. Born to an artistic family in Beijing, she grew up in the Gobi desert in Gansu, Northwest China where her family had been exiled during the “Cultural Revolution”. She has been based in London for many years and has performed over 600 concerts and toured world-wide.

Hyelim Kim performs the Taegum flute, a traditional bamboo flute of her native Korea and is a regular with our resident band Notes Inégales. Her debut recording entitled ‘Nim : Hyelim Kim Taegŭm collection’ released by Universal Music in 2013 includes traditional pieces together with new works, special commissions and her own composition.